Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google Promises Unlimited Storage; Cancels; Tells Journalist Life's Work Deleted

techdirt.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

621–630 of 692 posts

Re: Google Promises Unlimited Storage; Cancels; Tells Journalist Life's Work Deleted

#621

Post by alwa »

rsync wrote: post #566
alwa wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Minimum rsync.net) is still (237.22TB x 1024 x $0.006/GB =) $1457/month. Most “independent journalists” I know aren’t operating on the kind of household budget where they can handwave that kind of bill away.

You misunderstand. You're not storing any data on rsync.net - you're just using our 'rclone' that is built into the platform. The minimum is $9/mo. Or less if you ask about the HN discount.

Oh! That’s very cool, I definitely did misunderstand.

That seems like incredible value for that kind of connectivity. Thank you for broadening my toolset. I can immediately think of a few little projects where such a technique will be useful.

Re: Google Promises Unlimited Storage; Cancels; Tells Journalist Life's Work Deleted

#622

Post by zlg_codes »

andrewmutz wrote: post #51

The actual headline is slightly less inflammatory: "Google Promises Unlimited Cloud Storage; Then Cancels Plan; Then Tells Journalist His Life’s Work Will Be Deleted Without Enough Time To Transfer The Data" The facts of the article are even less inflammatory. The journalist uploaded 237.22 TB of video to his google drive when the "unlimited" plan existed. When google phased out the unlimited plan, he's not paying fo…

I make it a point to downvote people who think they are tone moderators. You could have submitted it yourself if you found it first.

I don't see how it's less of a concern that he has 200+ TB of video. Perhaps don't advertise a limited resource as unlimited; then you won't get people like this guy.

He deserves the ability to get the data off his account. Google acting like their hands are tied are simply being malicious.

Re: Google Promises Unlimited Storage; Cancels; Tells Journalist Life's Work Deleted

#623

Post by zlg_codes »

ollien wrote: post #264
garblegarble wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He had ~6 months to download his data, not 7 days: they told him on the 11th of May 2023 (or thereabouts they gave him a 60 day period ending on the 10th of July 2023) that he had exceeded his quota. They should, of course, have given a clear timeline for deletion at that point, but does he seriously expect other people to believe he was naive enough to think Google would continue to store his data forever after they…

The six-month grace period notice pretty clearly states his data would be read-only, while the seven-day notice seems to be the first time destruction is even mentioned. I think we can both agree that there's a world of difference between data being read-only and being destroyed. I think it's completely reasonable to say he has 7 days to download it.

What kinda connection do you have where you're able to transfer 200 TB of data in 7 days?

Did you even do the math before that tripe escaped your fingers?

Re: Google Promises Unlimited Storage; Cancels; Tells Journalist Life's Work Deleted

#624

Post by zlg_codes »

tmpz22 wrote: post #462
lwhi wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A decent company would drop $2000 on HDD, or a bit less on optical / tape media, and ship (rather than delete) the data to the customer they fired, at their own cost, or at the very least, at customer cost. A company which provides literally no way to get data out and offloads expenses is a POS company. Please, be realistic. This is nuts and you must know it.

A small business likely would - at least at the customers expense. A medium size business might if you could talk to a reasonable person in the right department and they had the time to do it. Its beyond the ability of a large company. This is what people are actually angry about. As a company gets more and more successful (size/revenue) it becomes less capable at going above and beyond for the majority of their cust…

You're right, and it's paradoxical. Companies with poor customer service should be taking hits in the stock market and in the public eye, but Comcast is still around...

The guy in TFA should be a warning to others: you cannot trust other machines to handle your data responsibly. They'll turn on you and demand a ransom when it's convenient. Self-host, and own your infrastructure.

Re: Google Promises Unlimited Storage; Cancels; Tells Journalist Life's Work Deleted

#625

Post by zlg_codes »

shwouchk wrote: post #526
frognumber wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The actual headline is slightly less inflammatory: "Google Promises Unlimited Cloud Storage; Then Cancels Plan; Then Tells Journalist His Life’s Work Will Be Deleted Without Enough Time To Transfer The Data" Correct. 7 days is not enough time to stream >200TB of data, let alone find a place to stream it to. This puts a human being in a crisis position. He doesn't need to just find someone willing to store his data.…

Sorry, but I call FUD here; Had a very similar experience with google, except with maybe 20tb rather than 200, and no data loss. They gave warnings at least a year in advance about the transition to google workspace from google for business or however it was called before. It was quite clear that this transition would eventually be mandatory and that it did not include unlimited space for a flat fee. I punted on the…

> Nothing in life is unlimited and taking such a promise at face value appears to me as being willfully naive.

What are your thoughts on false advertising? What part of "unlimited" in the advertisement should be allowed, if the resource itself is not unlimited?

Re: Google Promises Unlimited Storage; Cancels; Tells Journalist Life's Work Deleted

#626

Post by zlg_codes »

godelski wrote: post #545
nirvdrum wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps it was a mistake, but offering unlimited was a competitive advantage. Others working with the economies of storage had limits or priced based on usage; having unlimited would be a great way to draw in customers. I'm highly skeptical of tech companies effectively price dumping, harming competition, and then coming out and saying "Oops, that wasn't sustainable. Here are the new terms." I'm of the mindset that i…

It's also naive to think a big tech company wouldn't be aware of power distributions (see Pareto) when offering anything unlimited. Which Google does continue to offer unlimited data on Google Fi, but throttles (even though they also discontinued the unlimited photo upload with Pixels and many times offers expansion of drive space but if you upgrade to a paid plan you don't get the additional storage, you just get ge…

Wouldn't be surprised if a bunch of Google employees hang out here and try to deliberately influence comments. Same for the other companies.

Re: Google Promises Unlimited Storage; Cancels; Tells Journalist Life's Work Deleted

#627

Post by zlg_codes »

nox100 wrote: post #281
terminous wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> taking advantage No. 100% wrong. If you advertise and sell "unlimited" then you should deliver unlimited. If you don't build in acceptable use limits into the contract, then that's your fault, not the customer's.

I challenge you to go to any restaurant that has "unlimited refills", back up a tanker trunk and fill your truck. I don't think any court would enforce "unlimited" for that situation. I'm not sure this storage one is all that different

A lot of restaurants place a limit on the size of the container you're allowed to use, and there's a cultural expectation that you won't loiter just to fill more soda. Assuming you bought food and are continuing to buy food, the unlimited soda is more of a hook to keep you there and has clearly outlined terms. Your bladder will also give way before your stomach does.

Re: Google Promises Unlimited Storage; Cancels; Tells Journalist Life's Work Deleted

#628

Post by brnt »

nox100 wrote: post #281
terminous wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> taking advantage No. 100% wrong. If you advertise and sell "unlimited" then you should deliver unlimited. If you don't build in acceptable use limits into the contract, then that's your fault, not the customer's.

I challenge you to go to any restaurant that has "unlimited refills", back up a tanker trunk and fill your truck. I don't think any court would enforce "unlimited" for that situation. I'm not sure this storage one is all that different

Generating/collecting 200TB of data is however entirely normal in some professions. Something Google should be and almost certainly is aware of.

In your analogy it would be Amazon setting up an S3 front on their corporate unlimited Google account. That didn't happen, it was just someone with more data than average. Google knows very well what the distribution looks like.

Re: Google Promises Unlimited Storage; Cancels; Tells Journalist Life's Work Deleted

#629

Post by johnnyanmac »

thinkharderdev wrote: post #418
freedomben wrote: post #363

Google deserves some hate here, but this problem is bigger than just them, and I think by being too narrowly focused on G we're missing a systemic problem. G is one of the worst offenders, but this is a cultural attitude/approach in most of tech. The idea is to acquire users by giving stuff away or making your service cheap, lock them in, then squeeze by ratcheting up the price. It's a playbook that has worked fantas…

What is bad about the situation exactly? You get a service for below cost for some amount of time at which point you have to start paying what it actually costs. I can understand if the company manages to corner the market by selling below cost and then jacks up the price way above cost, but cloud storage is still an extremely competitive market and generally quite a bit cheaper than the cost of storing an equivalent…

>I can understand if the company manages to corner the market by selling below cost and then jacks up the price way above cost,

That's usually what happens. And Google is no stranger to it given Youtube and to some extent Chrome (which is "free" but also being molded to more or less have DRM on the browser level).

Cloud is fortunatly still competitive, but I can't say the same for many other tech markets.

Re: Google Promises Unlimited Storage; Cancels; Tells Journalist Life's Work Deleted

#630

Post by godelski »

zlg_codes wrote: post #626
godelski wrote: post #545

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also naive to think a big tech company wouldn't be aware of power distributions (see Pareto) when offering anything unlimited. Which Google does continue to offer unlimited data on Google Fi, but throttles (even though they also discontinued the unlimited photo upload with Pixels and many times offers expansion of drive space but if you upgrade to a paid plan you don't get the additional storage, you just get ge…

Wouldn't be surprised if a bunch of Google employees hang out here and try to deliberately influence comments. Same for the other companies.

I'm sure a bunch of Google employees hang out here. That's literally the draw of HN. But conspiracy? I'm not convinced.[0]

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38521408

Post reply on HN